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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par